On rising abductions, has the State lost control of security agents?

Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen publicly denied his government has a policy on enforced disappearances to the National Assembly this week.

In the same week, Police Inspector General Douglas Kanja faced his tenth habeas corpus summons, this time for Twaha Mwaipaya, as the Law Society of Kenya mobilised against the abduction of advocate Abshir Ahmedsadak Abdi. If enforced disappearances are not State policy, has the State lost control of its security agencies?

The November 4th statement claimed abductions have declined under the Kenya Kwanza administration under the Anti-Abduction Investigations Unit. Furthermore, he argued his government does not have a policy on enforced disappearances and attributed the practice to rogue officers.

Statistics cannot replace the urgent need to produce Mwaipaya, Abdi and others mentioned in Parliament. Neither will data prosecute those responsible for Standard Group associate editor Alex Kiprotich’s abduction. However, the Cabinet Secretary’s claim warrants scrutiny. While offered no official data, publicly available datasets from the Missing Voices Alliance and Kenya National Commission on Human Rights can fact-check his claim.

According to the Missing Voices Alliance, 38, 10, 32 and 22 enforced disappearances were recorded between 2019 and 2022 respectively under the Jubilee administration. Under Kenya Kwanza, Missing Voices recorded 10 cases in 2023, 55 in 2024, 6 in 2025 and 19 in 2026. Separately, the KNCHR verified 89 cases in 2024 and 46 cases so far in 2026.

For clarity, these figures refer only to enforced disappearances, which, by definition, implicate police or other state security officers. They do not include civilian kidnappings or missing persons cases. Conflating these categories obscures rather than clarifies the issue.

Available data does not support the Cabinet Secretary's claim. Using KNCHR figures, enforced disappearances increased from 102 cases during the Jubilee administration to 151 under Kenya Kwanza. With a year remaining, this number could rise.

Statistics aside, consider the cases of Twaha Mwaipaya and Abshir Abdi. Thirteen days after the Tanzanian CHADEMA leader was abducted in Kamulu, Machakos, no one has accounted for his whereabouts. Despite spirited attempts by his lawyers to establish his whereabouts, the Police Inspector General’s response to the habeas corpus application offered little reassurance.

A week after Mwaipaya’s abduction, CCTV cameras recorded advocate Abdi being abducted by armed men in tactical gear and bulletproof vests along Muchai Drive, Kilimani, shortly after 4am on November 1. He has not been seen since. Court documents filed in support of Abdi’s habeas corpus application suggest he had been harassed by multiple security agencies for over a year.

Court documents allege that National Intelligence Service officers arrested him on October 9, 2025, threatened him and the complainant with terrorism charges, abduction, and death unless their fraud case was dropped, and then transferred him to the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit.

Detained for two days, released, rearrested, and later presented in court, Abdi was freed after the ODPP declined custodial orders. His written complaints to the DCI Director, IG, NIS Director General, Military Intelligence Director, and IPOA Chairperson went unanswered before his abduction.

Both men should have been protected by their constitutional right to freedom, safety and a fair hearing. In Abdi’s case, the court documents contain names of specific officers, dates and implicates Kenya’s most important security agencies. The documents allege systemic misconduct, not the actions of a few rogue officers.

Again, the LSK has been forced into court and onto the streets to defend the justice system and stop the normalisation of this practice. Abducting a witness or lawyer is an attack on the courts. Who is next, a judicial officer or the Chief Justice herself?

In this context, those in Parliament and members of the public not persuaded by the CS’s denial can be forgiven. By attributing enforced disappearances to “rogue officers”, however, he has also disowned and left those involved, personally liable.

While political protection expires with administrations, serious crimes do not carry a statute of limitations. Sooner or later, justice catches up. Let the High Court give clear directions in the case of Mwaipaya soon and Abdi’s ruling on Monday 9, November.